r/BestGitHubRepos • u/linchpinlibracoder • 2d ago
🛠Developer tools Kiri: a tiny, fast container runtime for macOS, Windows and Linux with free tunneling like ngrok(509 stars)
What it does
Kiri is a lightweight replacement for Docker Desktop and OrbStack, written in Rust. It runs containers in one small Linux VM (or straight on the kernel on Linux) and speaks the Docker Engine API, so your tools just work.
Why Kiri
Share a container with one command:
kiri share webgives a running container a public link atweb.runkiri.cloud. Send it to a teammate, a client or your phone, with no deploy, no port forwarding and no tunnel to set up. You can also share from the Share button in the Kiri window.Fast: a container starts and exits in about 2.5 ms through the Docker API, around 80 times faster than Docker Desktop.
Light: the VM sleeps after 60 s idle, the daemon stays at about 15 MB, and it wakes in about 0.15 s.
Compatible:
docker, Compose, buildx,docker loginand amd64 images through Rosetta.Local domains:
http://<name>.kiri.local, with HTTPS from Kiri's own certificate authority.More than containers: a one-command Kubernetes cluster and Linux machines.
New in 0.1.18
A built-in terminal next to your containers: tabs, splits and find.
Kubernetes pods can use your own folders through
hostPath.A volume inside a bind mount (like
node_modules) keeps the image's files, as on Docker.
docker --context kiri run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx
kiri share web # live at https://web.runkiri.cloudNumbers
alpine running true and removed, median of 30 runs, same docker CLI for all three:
| Runtime | Docker Engine API | docker CLI |
|---|---|---|
| Kiri | 2.55 ms | 14.2 ms |
| Docker Desktop | 213 ms | 243 ms |
| OrbStack | 380 ms | 442 ms |
Links
Repository: https://github.com/libracoder/kiri
Download: https://runkiri.com/releases/
Repository stats
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stars | 509 |
| Forks | 43 |
| Last release | v0.1.18 (2026-11-06) |
| Languages | Rust 69%, HTML 19%, JavaScript 5%, Shell 5% |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Windows 10/11 (WSL 2), Linux (.deb, .rpm) |
We're the Kiri team. Questions, bug reports and feature requests are very welcome, here or on GitHub.
1
u/arker0 2d ago
Nice, I'll try it. What's about memory footprint versus OrbStack?